Title
Calling upon the United States federal government to suspend construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline and expressing solidarity with the Indigenous resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Body
WHEREAS, The proposed Dakota Access Pipeline would carry as many as 570,000 barrels of fracked crude oil per day for more than 1,100 miles from the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota to Illinois, passing over sensitive landscapes, including treaty-protected land containing recognized Native American cultural resources and across or under 209 rivers, creeks, and tributaries including the pristine Missouri River, which provides drinking water and irrigates agricultural land in communities across the Midwest; and
WHEREAS, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit allowing construction of the fracked oil pipeline without meaningful Tribal consultation or environmental review as required by federal law in July, 2016, despite deep opposition from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Tribal nations along the proposed route as well as from farmers, scientists, and more than 30 environmental advocacy groups; and
WHEREAS, In a show of unprecedented historical cooperation, over 100 Native American tribes have issued resolutions and/or traveled to stand in solidarity with the Lakota Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and have established two peaceful encampments in Cannon Ball, North Dakota known as the Sacred Stone Camp and Camp Warrior to resist the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and to protect this sacred land via their cultural and spiritual presence; and
WHEREAS, The United States federal government has a long and tragic history of oppressing Native Americans through formal policies such as the Civilization Fund Act of 1819, signed by President James Monroe, which led to the formation of often abusive Native American boarding schools in which children were kidnapped or separated from their homes, and sought to decimate Native American history,...
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